Car Review: 2008 Audi A5/S5

2008 Audi A5

PHOTO: Handout, Audi

By David Booth, Canwest News Service

Originally published: August 10, 2011

SMALL

MEDIUM

LARGE

VERONA, Italy – Filling in the gaps. That’s the motivation behind German auto manufacturers’ most sweeping changes to their business models since Lexus rode into town and kicked their butts with its asluxurious- but-far-more-reliable LS 400.

Quality control issues and corporate arrogance (largely) behind them, the three German luxury marques have been on a charge as of late, resulting in a proliferation of new models that is positively stupefying. BMW has most recently added a 6 Series coupe, the Z4-based M Coupe and a refreshed X3 sportactivity vehicle, with the diminutive 1 Series also on its way to our shores. That’s not even mentioning the CS concept and the much-rumoured X6.

Meanwhile, Mercedes has outdone BMW in vehicle procreation to the point where it now has two different entry-level sedans, the C-Class (if you’re Benz’s traditionally conservative client) and the C-Class Sport (one presumes for the portion of its clientele still sporting its God-given teeth and hair). Ditto for Mercedes’ midsized sedan with the traditionally boxy E-Class deferring to the CLS when the prospect isn’t yet follically challenged. In fact, counting Mercedes models, especially when you throw in AMG variants, becomes an exercise in futility. By the time you reach the end of the product line, you’ve forgotten where you started.

Audi resisted this all-you-caneat buffet-style marketing for as long as it could. But the tide changed with the sales success of the Q7. Seeing the writing on the wall, the company has, in fairly quick succession, unveiled the sporty little A3 and the rip-roaring R8 supercar.

Someone more cynical than me could postulate the new A5 coupe is simply a result of some marketing whiz noticing that there was one numeral left unused in its lineup (previously A2, A3, A4, A6, Q7 and A8). The A5, however, is more important than that.

Though the company hasn’t had a coupe in its lineup since 1991, one could argue that Audi has been a serious threat to BMW and Mercedes since it launched the original Quattro coupe in 1980.

Highlighting the importance the company places on this latest “halo” vehicle, the A5, despite its relatively minuscule projected sales numbers, is the first car to use the company’s new modular platform scheduled to underpin the next version of the much better-selling, and one presumes more profitable, A4 sedan and wagon.

Judging from the A5’s performance, the A4 will definitely benefit from the new design. The coupe’s chassis is, like most new products emanating from Germany these days, incredibly stiff, lending a sense of stability that I truly appreciated while hunting down Mercedes and BMWs on Italy’s high-speed (yet incredibly bumpy) autostrada. Even at speeds that would have Canadian gendarmes reaching for their Tasers, the A5 was nothing short of rock solid.

Of course, we speed-limited Canadians can never make use (or at least get caught making use) of all that highspeed stability, but we can appreciate the agility that the new five-link front and trailing-arm rear suspensions engender. Though it stretches 4,625 millimetres from stem to stern, the relatively light-for-an-all-wheel-drive- Audi curb weight of 1,630 kilograms means the A5 literally flicks through hairpins (of which, if you’ve seen the original The Italian Job, there are many).

And it sticks to the road well for a mainstream coupe. Roll is well muted by the firm suspension and even the base 3.2’s 225/45R17 performance radials stick like glue. The steering, while light at low speeds, firms up nicely as the driving gets serious. The one debit mark on its comportment is the paucity of feedback through the steering wheel; there’s always a sensation of numbness preventing the driver from feeling exactly what’s going on with the front tires.

No such vagaries plague the higher- performance S5, however. Besides the upgrade to a powerful 4.2-litre direct-injection V8, the S5 gets stickier tires and, perhaps the biggest blessing of all, more direct steering. The S5’s leather-clad steering wheel communicates much more adroitly what’s happening to its gummy 255/35R19 radials.

Of course, what catches everyone’s attention is the great honking V8 lurking under the S5’s hood. Like all recent Audi V8s, the 4.2L is at once freerevving and torquey as well as equally somniferous at both low and high rpm. Though its 354 horsepower pales in comparison with the RS4’s 420 hp, it’s a gem of a powerplant. Even its 5.1-second zero-to-100-kilometres-anhour acceleration time fails to convey how eagerly it responds to a deliberate right foot. It’s one of those rare engines that’s as happy at 7,000 rpm as it is at 3,000 rpm.

The base 3.2L V6 may be less powerful but it’s still a willing contributor to serious fun. Similarly directly fuel injected, the 3.2L also gets Audi’s first use of fully variable (for lift as well as duration) camshaft timing. The result is a boost to 265 hp and a more authoritative exhaust note than any previous Audi six. In an unusual move, both engines will be initially available only in six-speed standard format, with Tiptronic automatics available a few months down the road. And, no, Audi’s sweet-shifting S-tronic twin-clutch manumatic transmission will not be available because both engines are mounted longitudinally in the chassis.

This the first time Audi has competed directly with BMW’s strongest market niche, the 3 Series Coupe. And though I would have advised Audi stylists to push the envelope further to avoid some of the A5’s “me too” visual cues, there’s no doubt the new coupe continues Audi’s steadfast march toward equal footing with the cars from Munich and Stuttgart.